'Kevin was always the man that made everyone smile,' Heritage golfers remember Kevin Butler
Just about everyone at Heritage Country Club in Charlton got a kick out of Kevin Butler.
He was a member of the club for nearly 40 years and worked on the maintenance crew at Heritage for the past 20. When he wasn’t mowing or playing golf, he enjoyed making people laugh in the clubhouse. Everyone called him by his initials, “KB.”
So Heritage golfers were devastated to hear of his death at age 71 on Sept. 14.
“Tragic, tragic, tragic,” said Heritage owner Bill Plante, who considered him to be a close friend.
Butler was highly allergic to bees, and Plante said it’s believed that he was bitten while mowing the lawn at his home in Southbridge. Later that day, his companion, Tammi Cloutier, found him dead on the floor in the house with his EpiPen at his side.
“Everybody’s in shock over it,” Plante said.
Butler recently had learned he was cancer free after battling large B cell lymphoma for more than a year.
“To hear it was from a bee sting after he beat cancer,” Plante said, “and got a clean bill of health was just devastating to all of us. You don’t want to believe it.”
Last fall, Heritage held a dinner for Butler to boost his spirits while he battled the disease.
Plante said he hopes to hold a golf tournament in Butler’s memory either this fall or next year, and he’s considering erecting a plaque or monument in his name that will list deceased members.
“Just a loved guy around here, a character,” Plante said. “You liked to have him in your company because he was funny, and you could joke with him, and he could take the ribbing pretty well, and he could give it out.”
“Kevin was always the man that made everyone smile,” said Shane Bayer, former pro and general manager at Heritage, “that made everyone laugh, that made everyone feel as if they belonged. Kevin was a great man. We will all miss him for the smiles and love he brought to all of us.”
Plante organized golf trips for members to Cape Cod for the past 25 years, and Butler rarely missed.
Butler was a high handicapper, but he’s the only golfer to card holes-in-one on each of Heritage’s four par-3 holes.
“He loved to tease the better players in the club,” Plante said, “that he had four, and some of them had zero. I had one on the 13th hole, and he used to like to tell me that, too.”
Each year, Butler would announce that this would be the year he’d finally break through and become a good golfer.
At Marianhill High in Southbridge, Butler was known as the Golden Toe for his soccer exploits, and he also played baseball. He went on to get his bachelor’s and master's degrees at Assumption University and worked as a drug and alcohol counselor.
“He had a great heart,” Plante said. “He could drive you a little crazy at times, but then you’d hug and kiss him in the next hour because you loved him.”
—Contact Bill Doyle at bcdoyle15@charter.net. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @BillDoyle15.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Kevin Butler left a lasting legacy at Charlton's Heritage Country Club
